57 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 8-21-15”

  2. Kim,
    I think you missed my point yesterday. Based on what you included in your response, a status report would look something like what I’ve listed below. If worded gently, it would 1) document how you spent your time and prevent second-guessing and 2) allow HIM to see where he might incorporate some efficiency without you having to point it out (which it sounds like is an issue with him).

    Spent 4 hours deciphering Excel notes relating to the X contract; cleaned up and created a workable document for client presentation.
    Spent 6 hours reviewing e-mails relating to the X, Y, and Z contracts and consolidated pertinent information into a spreadsheet for GIWW.
    Spent 8 hours pulling all the information out of an old ACT account and consolidating into one document.
    Spent 2 hours scanning business cards into GIWW’s computer.
    Spent 2 hours changing the colors in a Power Point Presentation because the colors looked lighter on one and darker on another; they turned out to be exactly the same but just looked different on the two different monitors.

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  3. I was talking to my friend M on my way home last night. I told her what all had gone on this week (I have always called her my emotional North- A talk with her always sets me back on the right path) She said anytime I had a highly stressful time in my life that Guy has become more demanding and degrading. This isn’t the first time this has happened and he expects me to cower and get in line like I always do. I tend to forget things like that when it is over. Good practice going back to the alcoholic discussion yesterday. I guess I am emotionally forgetful.
    I have had the idea that I have a former client who manages a Clark Personnel Branch. I think I may talk to her about doing temporary work until I can find what I want to do. I have someone encouraging me to do party planning and has been for quite a while. I am not sure how to get my foot in the door there.
    All I really know if that after 11 years of banging my head against a wall with real estate I am worn out. I don’t want to do it anymore. Maybe trying out a few different jobs will help me see where my strengths are and find something that is a good fit. I don’t want to hang my hopes on the next job being THE one. I have done that a few times already and have the battle scars to prove it.

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  4. It’s Friday!
    Friday’s almost over for Jo. I’m not ready for the weekend yet.
    Maybe tomorrow.

    Kim, I think getting out of there would be a good move.
    I remember your saying you have a Master’s from U. Md. but I have forgotten what it’s in.
    There must be something there.

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  5. Good morning, everyone.

    Praying you’ll find deeply satisfying work that nourishes your creativity, Kim. You have a lot of good ideas about things with which I have little knowledge or experience. There’s something out there that’s waiting for your creative touch to be applied. 🙂

    As for me, I love what I’m doing now. Homeschooling, teaching piano, and even the little bit of performing I do, all feed my creative soul. I can tailor-make a program for each of my children based on their interests and talents (and find a way to teach them what they need to know, even if it’s not something toward which they have natural skill or affinity).

    Similarly, I can gather materials and put together a plan for each of my piano students that is appropriate toward each individual’s needs/desires.

    And performing — well, there are many ways to interpret a piece of music, and I love the process of getting familiar with a piece, taking “ownership” of it, if you will, and finding the balance between the composer’s intent, the performance practice from the era of history from which it originated and bringing part of myself into the performance to make it uniquely my own.

    A very satisfying life I have. May the Lord lead you, Kim, to a similar place according to His will.

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  7. Good plan, Kim, on the temp work. At one point in life I had a full position and a part time position. If one was going badly, the other seemed to be going well. It really helped in self esteem to know for certain that the problem was the job and not me.

    I had one position where I had to justify my time spent. It was as the cooperative student program at IRS. They were studying how much time the tax auditors spent on return. I really hated having to do that because it was not an original part of my work and it took time from other things. But one does what one has to do. If I had to do it now, I would make a key that used abbreviations for recurring work such as S.P.=Showed Property. Anything out of the ordinary would get an * for further explaination. I would have this posted to a daytimer type sheet each day, maybe with the key to abbreviations on the back of each one for the boss.

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  16. Just catching up on things around here. I’ve been away since the weekend. Youngest sibling’s in-laws have a getaway on a resort ‘up north’ (as we say) and I was invited up for a few days. It was a lovely time, swimming and snorkeling in the lake, kayaking up the river, playing with the adorable Little and Baby Nieces, and holding long discussions (and games of Bananagrams) with the adults in the evening.

    So to comment on points that I noticed glancing back:

    On vows: I signed a commitment with the missions agency not to drink alcohol during the time I served with them. As alcohol would have been extremely offensive to the Islamic culture in which I was working, I considered it a wise policy of the mission. I did not, however, consider it a binding vow for life.
    The now infamous Bill Gothard would try to get people to make ‘commitments’ during his Basic Seminars. He would give a whole lot of reasons why this commitment, e.g. reading your Bible for 5 minutes each day, would change your life for the better, along with wonderful anecdotes of how it worked for others. Then he would, hurriedly like the voices saying the fine print on radio ads, quote a Bible verse about how vows could not be broken. Then as you were just grasping that this was a vow, he would ask for a show of hands. It was brilliant salesmanship, and, as a young preteen, I fell for it. Guess what? Immediately I made that ‘vow’, reading the Bible became a “heavy burden and grievous to be borne.” Sometimes, when I didn’t find the time during the day, I would sit up late at night, trying to fulfill the vow before the clock struck midnight. It did not help that during that time, I was struggling with those terrible thoughts and fears that so greatly resembled Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, so my mind would keep wandering from my task and make it much longer. The burden and terror of trying to fulfill that vow (and several others like it) further pushed me toward the edge of a mental breakdown. So, I think the man who encourages children to vow to never touch alcohol is doing a destructive work. Making a vow to be good is using fleshly methods to achieve a good end instead of relying on the Spirit of God to work in you the good desire. Vowing like that is legalism, which was the other sin of the Pharisees, for legalism and hypocrisy go hand in hand.

    Peter, on your comment about ‘moderation in all things’: The Bible says something very like that in Philippians (4:5), “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.”

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  17. Miss Bosley!

    I love fall, it can’t come soon enough.

    Kim, you’d be a great party planner. Maybe you could do some research on the field (I assume it is a “thing” now, business- and career-wise), see what it would take to launch a little planning/consulting business of your own, team up with someone else in a partnership maybe — or find an existing service you could be part of.

    Meanwhile, it’s FRIDAY. I have two stories to write — one on the replacement (and ongoing dismantling 😦 ) of our unique “lift” bridge in the harbor, built by the Navy in the 1940s and being replaced by a boring, straight, concrete span; and the other story on a family restaurant celebrating its 90th anniversary this weekend.

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  18. Phil 4:5 also (and more commonly?) translated as gentleness or gentle spirit

    That actually comes in handy this morning for me as I answered yet another FB post from a friend (a very liberal christian) who loves to post links critical of orthodoxy with which I often disagree, at least in part. 🙂

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  20. As for responses from the church (there may be a few other congregants in that list, after all), I liked this quote I saw in an online post from a Richard Clark:

    “For the minister of the gospel, the challenge is to show grace to sinners and victims of sin alike, never forgetting that we are sinners too. This is not a time to excommunicate first and ask questions later. This is a time for confrontation, grieving, and prayer.

    “We like to advertise our churches as places for broken people. But when sin and its consequences come to public fruition, it results in a mess we often are tempted to clean up at all costs. Unfortunately there is no quick fix for the disorder caused by sin. The gospel teaches something else: work through the disorder and chaos, and revel in grace.”

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  21. Those options sound good to me, Kim, but maybe if you wrote out a list of all the skills you have–can do excel and so forth–it might show you your may strengths. You may already have done this, of course, but we could cheer you on. 🙂

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  23. Donna, I just looked up the Greek word used, epieikes. It means “Seeming or suitable. Equitable, fair, mild, gentle.” Moderation is an appropriate translation. We think of moderate as being balanced or controlled, but it also conveys gentleness and being peaceable. Moderators are peacemakers, and the old-fashioned sentence, “Moderate one’s tone”, meant to lower your voice and speak more gently.

    6 Arrows, I think I have mentioned this before, but the Duggars were in ATI/IBLP and influenced greatly by Bill Gothard. The few times I saw anything of the show, I recognized the things they said as coming from his teaching. I know another very large family, not in the public spotlight, whose tragedy mirrors that of the Duggars, and others with much similar problems. One such family goes to the same church, and I mentioned what the eldest son had done recently (there is no sign of repentance in that case). Josh Duggar would have attended the same Basic Seminar – every apprenticeship (read preteen/teenager) student in ATI had to attend it. He probably made many of the same commitments (one of which was to stay sexually pure and pornography free). It has done nothing for him. It has done nothing for the children of the families I know. They were forced to assume a form of Godliness, but they did not know the Power thereof. So now as adults, they crash and burn and great is their fall.

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  24. Karen, I didn’t respond to one of your comments yesterday because I didn’t want to downplay your husband’s decision to stay sober, especially given his habit of keeping it a secret and his health issues.

    But it caught my eye that you expressed his desire for a glass of beer as a “temptation.” I wonder how much that plays into the “fall” of a person who has been sober for a while. On a hot day, I sometimes want a glass of lemonade or a slice of watermelon or a bowl of ice cream. My husband likes a hard limeade (which has some alcohol in it, but not a lot). I’d express any of those as a “desire” and not a “temptation.” But once you feel something as “temptation” and you give in to it, there is guilt involved, and a sense you have failed, and maybe a sense that the “failing” is deeper than just this once and you have proven how weak you are.

    I imagine that a person could mentally do that: “All right, I’m seeing this as a temptation, but really, a tall glass of cold beer would taste good right now, and be refreshing. I won’t go to a bar; I might be tempted to drink more than one. But I think I will just go buy some bananas, some pretzels, and one cold beer.”

    But a person who has broken trust in the past would have to do that only with the “permission” of a spouse, and with their knowledge. But treating it as a beverage to be drunk to savor, and not as one to drink to get drunk, is a whole different mind-set. If a person can drink a beer as casually as I drink a lemonade or my husband drinks a hard lime-ade, but with the knowledge that “more than one isn’t good for me,” then I think there’s a different issue. If the person doesn’t have the self-control just to drink and enjoy one (or two, if that is safe for that person), then it’s probably better not to have the one.

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  25. Cheryl, you very much hit on the issue. My paternal grandfather told the story of taking his last drink of alcohol the day my father was born. He would follow that up by saying that if he took one drink he wouldn’t stop. He knew that about himself and stayed away from it. That may be Lee’s position.
    My father drank to destress. He has a very stressful job and when he came home in the evening he would have a drink. When he was told in January he would be retiring in March (pretty much a forced early retirement) I would go by his house in the afternoon and he would be drinking. I told him if he intended to sit on the back deck and become and alcoholic I needed to know RIGHT THEN because I was walking off the deck, going home, and never coming back. He tossed the drink out in the yard and quit cold turkey. Eventually he developed diabetes and couldn’t have the sugar in the alcohol but it was a big treat for him at Christmas to have an egg nog. He savored the taste of the bourbon, but that was it. Once a year.

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  26. One thing that I started to post yesterday but ended up not posting, is that moving from the ranks of teetotaler to the ranks of those who occasionally drink a single glass of wine with a meal, but with family members who are avid teetotalers, I can see how many of them have mystified alcohol and come up with ludicrous falsities about it.

    One of my brothers told my sister, not meaning to be tongue in cheek, that even one drink of alcohol kills brain cells, and it breaks down inhibitions so seriously that after just one drink a man might molest his children. Sorry, that is just stupid. I’ve only had a slight buzz once. (My sister divided a bottle of homemade wine into four glasses, and it probably should have served five or six. Furthermore, she and her husband hadn’t done the process correctly in their early attempts to make wine, and the stuff was potent, very high alcohol. So it wasn’t just one serving.) I felt just slightly dizzy; it wouldn’t have been a good idea to drive a car. But my husband, equally affected by it, engaged in a serious theological conversation with a nephew who hadn’t had any of the wine, and was able to keep up his end of the conversation.

    I’m sure there are people who are overly sensitive to it and can’t handle any. But the idea that people might engage in gross sin with one or two drinks is ridiculous. It’s the same sort of “us vs. them” thinking that says black people and white people can’t marry because of some particular trait of black people. Some non-drinkers are so “separated” from people who drink that this extreme mythology has sprung up around alcohol and those who choose to drink it.

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  27. I looked the translation up, too, roscuro, and see the connection — I’d not heard ‘moderation’ used in that verse before, but can see how that fits

    From Ps. 104: and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

    Doesn’t that presume a pleasant “feeling” that naturally comes from wine/alcohol, indicating (with approval) that it gladdens the heart and makes you feel good?

    Again, lots of warnings in Scripture as well about wine drinking — and decisions about whether or not to imbibe are highly personal & individual based on personal makeup, history, conviction, etc.

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  28. It seems if one does not like to be questioned or thought badly about for having one drink that that person would not second guess about why a person chooses not to have a drink and think badly of them as if they are in some supposed enemy camp.

    Early on in this discussion I felt like I was being judged as calling drinkers sinners because I happen to now be Southern Baptist, which I have never done. I’m guessing I have been S. B. for about ten years. That means for 5/6 of my life I was not Southern Baptist.

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  29. We live under grace, not law and that is how I see both the problems some have with declaring drinking any alcohol sin and those who insist that if you break a vow you’re going to hell.

    That’s always been part of my problem with the Gothard Institute. That verse “train up a child in the way in which he shall go and he will not depart from it,” has been used by many earnest parents as a promise that if they follow what God says their children will be saved.

    That’s not how it works, nor what my understanding of that verse means. I’ve always taught that it involves watching your child carefully and understanding what their natural inclination is–just as you observe how a tree grows–and then encouraging it in the direction those gifts, talents and abilities are headed, to God’s glory.

    That means, to me, if you have a creative child, you encourage that creativity by providing Biblically sound means to explore it–if you have a musician, you provide opportunities to learn their instrument, a dancer, the same.

    It’s not a guarantee they’ll be a “success” by someone else’s terms, but it means they have an opportunity to nurture the talents God put within them.

    As to the drinking, I’m the daughter of an alcoholic. I have a glass of wine periodically, but only one. I warned all my children about the family proclivity.

    My personal problem is with chocolate, particularly M&Ms.

    Paul advises us not to set temptation before a weaker individual. To me, that means the “stronger” believer should set aside their freedom to do something, in love for the weaker brother.

    If someone believes that one drink will send them back to a life of alcoholism, I say, support them. We do not know the convictions God has placed in someone’s life and the reason why. As the “stronger” sister in the Lord, I need to respect what they are saying and deny myself when the opportunity arises.

    Climbing off the soapbox now, into the freedom to follow Christ’s bent to where I’ve been called to use my gifts.

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  30. But Janice don’t you know why you always take two Baptists fishing with you? Because if you only take one he will drink up all your beer! (I am attempting to lighten it up rather than insult. I know plenty of Baptists who occasionally drink.

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  32. Janice, I’ve never seen a person who feels free to have one occasional drink think badly of those who choose not to drink. Have you seen that happen?

    To jump to a different example for a moment, when I was 28 or 30, somewhere in there, I had a lengthy conversation with someone who believed that I was sinning in going to movies. What was funny about that is that I saw my first movie in a theater at about age 18 (with this individual I might add) and then saw about two more before I went to college (22-26), where I wasn’t allowed to attend movies and I did not. After that I went to about one a year. So I’d seen six or eight in my life, at the most, at that point, and was extremely careful what I saw. (In the last three years before that phone call, I had seen one of the Narnia movies and I think a movie made for children. Nothing even close to offensive.) When I explained that I only saw about one a year, screened very carefully, and that it wasn’t anything close to a big part of my life, he said well I said that on one hand, but on the other I was “holding onto” my supposed “right” to attend movies, and if it really wasn’t very important to me, then I should be willing to give them up for God. Um, yeah, if it was wrong to attend a movie, I’d give up my “right” in a heartbeat!

    Now, remember, I didn’t attend a public high school or a secular college, and most of my life has been spent in fairly insulated circles. Therefore, I have never in my life seen anyone pressured to drink or smoke. I know that it happens, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen lots and lots of social pressure applied about drinking being wrong, or movie attendance, or dancing, or certain kinds of music. Look, I’m the “liberal” in my family, out of seven of us, and I’ve never smoked a cigarette, used a dirty word when I hurt myself, etc. The “pressure” I have felt has always been on the “taste not, touch not, handle not.” And I’m fairly sure (could be wrong) that those of us who only occasionally partake aren’t the ones inclined to put pressure on either camp. I for one don’t care if anyone drinks . . . though I do care about not adding to Scripture’s list of sins.

    (BTW, as to whether I would “support the weaker brother/sister,” I had a very close friend in Nashville who was saved out of alcoholism. We served both wine and grape juice with the Lord’s supper, and she always took grape juice unless it wasn’t available, and if it wasn’t then she would take wine. I always took wine unless I was sitting next to her; if I was sitting next to her, I took juice, even though it wouldn’t have bothered her if I didn’t.)

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  34. In the legalistic school I attended we had to sign a document stating that we wouldn’t dance, go to movies, etc. It just occurred to me that if it is a sin to go see a movie then it must be a sin to watch TV. Since a lot of movies were based on books it must be a sin to read a book. Oh my! The list is growing.

    Mr P and I enjoy going to the movies together. We have lunch, see a matinee’, eat popcorn…it’s a nice rainy afternoon thing to do.

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  35. Donna, this was good from that article:

    “That does not mean that I must become the slave of another’s conscience. John Calvin puts the point well when he says that we restrain the exercise of our freedom for the sake of weak believers, but not when we are faced with Pharisees who demand that we conform to what is unscriptural. Where the gospel is at stake, liberty needs to be exercised; where the stability of a weak Christian is at stake, we need to restrain it.”

    When I realized that my brothers who believe drinking is evil are all older than me (7-14 years older) and were all raised in church, with daily Scripture reading, most with Bible college educations and two in full-time ministry . . . any claim that I have to avoid causing them to stumble disappears. Biblically, if I have a roommate who was newly saved out of alcoholism I shouldn’t have wine in the house. But if I’m talking to someone who has been a baptized Christian for longer than I have been alive, I have no call whatsoever to treat him as a “weaker brother” who needs kid-glove treatment. Now, for the most part I don’t get into discussions with my brothers about drinking, going to movies, etc., but they aren’t baby Christians and I don’t need to hide the wine in our fridge.

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  36. Donna, that’s an interesting link from Ligonier.

    I enjoy exercising my liberty in Christ, after so many years of walking in fear. However, I do remind myself of the verse, “For you were called to liberty, brothers. Only do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13) I enjoy the occasional film, many classic novels, and mix a few rock/pop/country songs with my classical favourites. I don’t have the taste or money to drink the occasional alcoholic beverage, but I have no problem with those who do. But that verse means that I can lovingly restrain my freedom for the sake of others. I only wore skirts when I went to visit friends who are very conservative in their dress; after all, I observed the dress code of West Africa when I went there and surely I could do the same for my friends.

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  37. If only there was something worth seeing at the movies, I’d go with you! 🙂

    Some friends of ours, married, left the military to attend Bible school. They didn’t last long.

    This particular school required that even married students leave their dorm room doors open during the day and never remove both feet from the floor. They had to ask permission to drive together more than an hour somewhere–and since his widowed mother lived 2.5 hours away and they had chosen that school to be close to her–this presented a problem.

    They finally concluded this school had no sense of grace nor understanding of the marital state and they left. I don’t even think they finished the semester.

    It’s stuff like that which makes me shake my head but also worry about what else well-meaning Pharisees insists what someone must do to prove they are a “real” Christian.

    Only Jesus knows the state of our souls. Unless we are given reason by the Holy Spirit to assume otherwise, I suggest we err on the side of love.

    Ooops, got to put the soap box away and return to work.

    I’d love to write what I discovered today in John . . . Maybe tomorrow. 🙂

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  38. Cheryl, we are from two very different cultures. I only heard one person when young say all of us in the neighborhood were going to hell because we did not attend her church. We loved that lady and forgave her misconception. You know how love covers a multitude of sins. Other than her, I never heard another person in my background accuse someone of being a sinner. I grew up in a mainline Presbyterian church which was beside a college. I don’t remember sin being a topic. I suppose growing up in an urban area meant people were in most conversations not wanting to agitate the masses with talk about sin. Our different backgrounds certainly make for a difficult time in relating to each other on these type subjects. If parents had alcohol in the house, I heard peers talk about getting into it. There was little respect for parents. I was pressured to try smoking a cigarette once, to try pot, and to drink. I tried one cigarette, no pot, and I did try drinking. In my experience drinking more often than not led people into bad situations. But I am glad to know that people can drink as you and others here drink and not have anything but a pleasant result all with God’s favor. Some of my experiences involve being hit by a drunk driver (teenager who lost his job and went to jail), date rape, being driven to the dorm by a guy who got out of the car to walk me to the door and he threw up, thankfully before a goodnight kiss, and I could go on and on. So alcohol for me has become a reminder of darkness. It does not mean to me what it means to you. So please treat others with grace who for whatever reason do not care for drinking and do not want to be around it. I do tolerate it at social functions, but my preference is to not be around it. If you and I ever have lunch and you wish to order a drink, it would be okay with me. I would not be thinking of you being a sinner, but in seeing or smelling the alcohol, I might be reminded of dark times. But I would not mind that because I would not want you to miss an occasion to enjoy a beverage at lunch.

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  39. Roscuro, yes, I believe I remember seeing you mention the Duggars as having been involved with the ATI/IBLP/Bill Gothard stuff. I myself am not very familiar with any of that, other than what you, and Cheryl, to some extent, have mentioned. Nor have I seen the Duggar reality show.

    Sadly true, as you say, that those types of commitments force a young person to assume a form of godliness that denies the Power of Christ.

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  40. I took my friend to two appointments. The first was to a coumadin clinic which surprisingly was at the doctor’s office where husband and I go at Emory. The other appointment was almost downtown and with lab work and all I did not get home until about 4:00 p.m.

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  41. Janice, FYI, I never order wine at a restaurant–too expensive. 🙂 My husband and I (and the kids, if they’re home) have an occasional glass with a meal at home, but we’d never even offer it to guests unless we knew ahead of time that they are fine with drinking. So unless we happen to be at someone else’s house and they have other guests who don’t drink, we just won’t be in that situation.

    I am sorry for your own bad experiences–sounds pretty unpleasant and, yes, dark. When I was in college, a college student from my church (university student) invited all of us Bible college students over to his frat house for a party. He was a strong believer and actually chose to be in that environment as a testimony. Well, while we were there, one of the young men came up the stairs, stumbled and fell, and threw up all over the stairs. And of course I saw plenty of street drunks in Chicago. I have seen that side, but mostly from a distance. (I’ve also seen the tragedies that result from sex used other than how God intended it–I worked with many children in Chicago who suffered from living in single-parent homes, having different dads from their siblings, and from living without the protection of a father in an environment that was unsafe for children. It wasn’t sex that was the problem, but misuse of it.)

    I am completely fine with people choosing not to drink–and I know some of the sorrows that it causes even though my own family, being teetotalers, happens to have none of those stories. But my best friend’s husband had to have make-up on his face on their wedding day because of a long and ragged scar across his face (which he still wears, though it’s not as visible now) . . . he was hit head-on by a drunk driver two or three days before their wedding and obviously could have easily died. I myself was hit (though not injured) by a driver who was driving under the influence and without a license, and saw her get a “slap on the wrist” even though it was a repeat offense and even though Nashville posted billboards making it look like they were tough on drunk drivers. (DUI, no license, leaving the scene of an accident, and she got five or ten days, served on weekends for her convenience, and a $300 fine she never paid–who knows whether she served the time?)

    I don’t even need to have “grace” with those who choose not to drink–they aren’t doing anything approaching something wrong. It’s those who insist that I am in sin . . . that’s the problem, and even with them I usually just avoid the issue.

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  42. Michelle: That verse “train up a child in the way in which he shall go and he will not depart from it,” has been used by many earnest parents as a promise that if they follow what God says their children will be saved.

    One of our pastors says that verse can also be translated “train up a child in the way he would…” That means, if you leave them to themselves, they’ll continue in sin. But if we steer them in the right way they’ll follow that.

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  44. Mr. P and I had a conversation last night similar to this discussion. If I am busy enough sweeping my own side of the street I don’t have time to sweep yours. I am not sure where else you will find that saying but I discovered it in Celebrate Recovery a few years ago. I could tell what my hurts and bruises were and people could nod their heads in understanding but no one could tell me what I should do about it or give unsolicited or solicited for that matter advice.

    http://pluto.matrix49.com/15053/?subpages/CR_Lessons.shtml

    To sum it up I can’t judge Cheryl nor Janice nor anyone else for choosing not to drink or to have a glass of wine. I need to worry more about whether or not a glass of wine is a good idea for me. Is it causing ME to stumble and fall ? Is it causing ME to cause someone else harm? I need to worry about KIM doing the next right thing and not worry about whether Janice is sinning and being legalistic because being around alcohol brings back bad memories or if Cheryl is causing her older brothers, some who are ministers, to stumble because she has a glass of wine. It isn’t up to ME to judge YOU. It is up to me to take care of me and make sure I am not in denial and abusing alcohol.
    Etiquette is a set of rules that society follows to make others more comfortable. I eat seafood. Recently Peter and Mrs L came through my area. Peter asked that we not go to a seafood restaurant because Mrs. L doesn’t care for it. I could have insisted that since they were on the Gulf Coast they should try our seafood, after all we have the best there is. Instead to make my guests more comfortable I chose a different restaurant that offered something else our area is know for…good old fashioned Southern cooking. I did strongly suggest that Mrs. L try the tomato pie even though it had mayonaisse in it and she doesn’t care for it, but if memory serves she ate most of it and Peter only got a taste of it and everyone was happy.
    Janice if you were to visit me we would have a glass of tea because I know your preferences. Cheryl, if I were to have you over for dinner and we had red meat I would offer you a glass of red wine. If we had shrimp I would probably have some white wine around from cooking that I could offer you if you would like it As the hostess, etiquette requires that YOU, my guest are comfortable.

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  47. No Peter, I am home hanging out with all of you tonight. I posted something about it on the news thread. They moved it from the civic center to the stadium. The best way to describe the location would be “mostly Democrats”

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  50. Kim- I later found out Mrs L likes some seafood, like talapia, just not shell fish like shrimp or lobster. My bad.

    And you made too much sense for many people when you said, “It just occurred to me that if it is a sin to go see a movie then it must be a sin to watch TV. Since a lot of movies were based on books it must be a sin to read a book.”

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  51. I am behind on the comments, & don’t have time to finish them tonight, but I did just see Cheryl’s comment addressed to me, so I want to respond, then it is off to bed for me.

    Cheryl – For Lee, it was temptation, not merely a desire, because it was very strong craving, & not only a desire for the refreshment of a cold beer. He knew that one beer would not satisfy him, & he would be giving into temptation, not merely satisfying a desire.

    There are certain things that can be sin for one person, but fine for another, depending on how God leads them, & what their motivation is.

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  52. Karen, that definitely makes sense. Even if it had been “just” a desire, under the circumstances it would probably be better for him to abstain, but especially if it was a yearning and not just “hey, I know what would taste good about now.”

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  53. Third Arrow is staying at my parents’ house from tomorrow night to Wednesday morning, so I will temporarily be without my right hand helper. She does a lot here, and will be an asset to my folks while she stays there. It will be good for her, too, serving in a different realm for a while, and getting some extended time visiting with her grandparents.

    I’m going to drop out of the blog world during that time. You all have a great weekend, and I’ll see you later.

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